


i will always see your face

by messalina77



Category: Reylo - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 14:57:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15910569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messalina77/pseuds/messalina77
Summary: I have been reading your wonderful, astounding, awe-inspiring stories for months and finally found the guts to contribute.  A Reylo teacher fic, but not in a way I've seen just yet. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed reading the amazing works from this fandom.





	i will always see your face

Rey drinks.  
  
She drinks to imagine.  
  
She drinks to forget.  
  
She drinks so she can finally fall asleep in the early hours of the morning.  
  
This is her routine. Work, drink, eat, drink, drink, drink, sleep. Rise, recycle, repeat.  
  
Of course, she has friends to break the monotony. She is normal and normal people have friends. Like Finn and Rose. And Poe, sorta. But they all exist within the fragile and isolated bubble of work. She likes them but she doesn’t trust them. They don’t know about her…problem. They have their own issues, but nothing like hers. They don’t skip from gas station to gas station on different days of the week, hoping the pimply, teenage cashiers don’t catch on to her habit. And wondering ashamedly why she should care. She’s a nobody and, consequently, what kind of hubris would lead her to think anyone would care enough to notice? And because it’s not a problem, not really. Not yet.  
  
It doesn’t make her miss work, ever. Maybe once or twice, with nausea rolling thick through her stomach and a sharp headache slamming behind her eyes, she’s dimmed the lights of her classroom and proclaimed, half-heartedly, a movie day, which her students received with joy and loud acclaim. So what if she’s drinking a bottle of wine every night. And maybe a beer or two afterward. Or a few vodka cranberries as a chaser. She’s not a fucking alcoholic. She always shows up. She’s not a fucking alcoholic. She’s nothing like…Them. Or how she thinks They might have been.  
  
Anyway, the problem isn’t the alcohol.  
  
It’s the space between.  
  
It’s the reason she is this way.  
  
It’s because no one cares.  
  
Once she pretended that They were still looking for her, that her friends noticed she was struggling internally, that the people who claimed a presence in her life were genuinely attuned to her feelings and sentiments. But time has passed and she’s realized that while most people aren’t outwardly abusive, they are casually neglectful of her. And of her less than appropriate choices.  
  
Consequently, she’s become so very good at finding the balance between being black-out drunk and still being able to function the next day. Colleagues, principals, students smile vacantly at her in the hallways of the high school as she holds empty conversation after empty conversation. She does everything the school asks and not a bit more.  
  
They fucking love her for it.  
  
After six years of this balancing act, of thinking no one is watching, Rey accidentally fucks up in the most epic way.  
  
It’s a Thursday morning and she’s overindulged in bourbon on the rocks and feels like absolute and utter trash as she pulls her old Buick into the teachers’ parking lot.  
  
In class today they’re supposed to be discussing Frankenstein, but she feels like his monster. Alienated, and vaguely unable to understand herself and others, and inalterably alone.  
  
Totally and utterly alone.  
  
She tries not to analyze how exactly she will conduct this discussion when it is so clearly a topic with which she is overtly connected. Disgusted by her own self-pity and lack of self-control, Rey slowly approaches the building, wincing at the bright sunlight despite her large, dark sunglasses.  
  
Thankfully, no students have attempted to take advantage of her morning tutorials, so she sucks down coffee at her desk while slowly checking the copious emails in her inbox. She scrolls past one regarding a new student in order to mark off a few more items on the perfunctory to-do shit list for work she has, which is ongoing and seemingly ceaseless.  
  
Absorbed in her professional duties, and aching slightly from the misery of dehydration through the course of a strong hangover, Rey groans internally as the bell for second period rings.  
  
She takes another strong pull of coffee before moving around her desk to pull down the projector screen. An unconsciously massive sigh escapes between her lips as she finishes the task and slowly trudges back to behind her desk.  
  
As her students filter into the classroom and gradually take note of and celebrate the appearance of the projector screen (and most likely, the appearance of a movie), Rey pretends to sip nonchalantly on her coffee whilst actually gulping it down, careless of the scalding burn as it slides down her throat, in a pathetic attempt to wake up.  
  
The bell rings loudly and Rey moves to close the door. At that moment, a massive, hulking figure stomps past the threshold.  
  
This cannot be a high school student, Rey thinks stupidly but assuredly.  
  
She racks her brain for a notice of a new teacher, assistant principal, anything. Is he here to evaluate or check on her? This man….he’s built like a fucking solid oak tree. Rey’s eyes linger on his muscular arms and extreme height. Evolutionary instincts alone dictate that she has to climb him. And fuck him.  
  
Dark, soft hair inelegantly layered down to his shoulders, large brown eyes, a long and pouty set of gorgeous lips slightly too large for his face, a skintight black t-shirt and dark denim jeans…he doesn’t dress or look like anyone she works with, so why is he in her senior British Literature classroom?  
  
After a moment of awkward staring on both their parts, she clears her throat.  
  
“Can I help you?”  
  
A dark, indiscernible gaze meet hers and she melts in their chocolatey shade…although upon closer inspection- flecks of hazel? There’s a slight…olive green? Wait, why is she noticing this???  
  
Oh fuck.  
  
“Is this senior English?” he questions, in a deep baritone that makes Rey’s more intimate parts quiver.  
  
She straightens indignantly.  
  
“Yes, and I’m Ms. Niima. How can I help you?”  
  
He stares at her for an indeterminate amount of time, assessing and silent. His mouth works slightly back and forth in an oddly endearing display of uncertainty.  
  
“Ben Solo. I’m new here.”  
  
Rey’s jaw drops slightly at the connection with the name in the email she so flippantly ignored earlier. The name of the new fucking transfer student.  
  



End file.
